The science of extra-solar planets is one of the most rapidly changing areas of astrophysics and since 1995 the number of planets known has increased by almost two orders of magnitude. A combination of ground-based surveys and dedicated space missions has resulted in 560-plus planets being detected, and over 1200 that await confirmation. NASA's Kepler mission has opened up the possibility of discovering Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around some of the 100,000 stars it is surveying during its 3 to 4-year lifetime. The new ESA's Gaia mission is expected to discover thousands of new planets around stars within 200 parsecs of the Sun. The key challenge now is moving on from discovery, important though that remains, to characterisation: what are these planets actually like, and why are they as they are?

In the past ten years, we have learned how to obtain the first spectra of exoplanets using transit transmission and emission spectroscopy. With the high stability of Spitzer, Hubble, and large ground-based telescopes the spectra of bright close-in massive planets can be obtained and species like water vapour, methane, carbon monoxide and dioxide have been detected. With transit science came the first tangible remote sensing of these planetary bodies and so one can start to extrapolate from what has been learnt from Solar System probes to what one might plan to learn about their faraway siblings. As we learn more about the atmospheres, surfaces and near-surfaces of these remote bodies, we will begin to build up a clearer picture of their construction, history and suitability for life.

The Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory, EChO, will be the first dedicated mission to investigate the physics and chemistry of Exoplanetary Atmospheres. By characterising spectroscopically more bodies in different environments we will take detailed planetology out of the Solar System and into the Galaxy as a whole.

EChO has now been selected by the European Space Agency to be assessed as one of four M3 mission candidates.

Commission 36 covers the whole field of the physics of stellar atmospheres. The scientific activity in this large subject has been very intense during the last triennium and led to the publication of a large number of papers, which makes a complete report quite impractical. We have therefore decided to keep the format of the preceding report: first a list of areas of current research, then Web links for obtaining further information.

The Supernova Working Group was re-established at the IAU XXV General Assembly in Sydney, 21 July 2003, sponsored by Commissions 28 (Galaxies) and 47 (Cosmology). Here we report on some of its activities since 2005.

The business meeting of Commission 36 was held during the General Assembly in Prague on 16 August. It was attended by about 15 members. The issues presented included a review of the work made by members of Commission 36, and the election of the new Organising Committee. We note that a comprehensive report on the activities of the commission during the last triennium has been published in Reports on Astronomy, Transactions IAU Volume XXVIA. The scientific activity of the members of the commission has been very intense, and has led to the publication of a large number of papers.

We have calculated detailed, fully non-LTE, model atomospheres for massive zero-metal stars. We find the atmospheres of massive primordial stars become unbound due to radiation pressure on lines and continua over a much larger fraction of their evolution than previously expected.

Brown dwarf atmospheres form molecules, then high temperature condensates (corundum, titanates, silicates, and iron compounds), and then low temperature condensates (ices) as they cool down over time. These produce large opacities which govern entirely their spectral energy distribution. Just as it is important to know molecular opacities (TiO, H2O, CH4, etc.) with accuracy, it is imperative to understand the interplay of processes (e.g. condensation, sedimentation, coagulation, convection) that determines the radial and size distribution of grains. Limiting case models have shown that young, hot brown (L) dwarfs form dust mostly in equilibrium, while at much cooler stages (late T dwarfs) all high temperature condensates have sedimented out of their photospheres. But this process is gradual and all intermediate classes of brown dwarfs can partly be understood in terms of partial sedimentation of dust. With new models accounting for these processes, we describe the effects they may have upon brown dwarf spectral properties.

In this work we report recent spectral analyses of L dwarfs and our success in measuring Teff and log(g). Using dust filled atmospheres for early L dwarfs and rained out atmospheres for late L dwarfs we could derive Teff of 1400 to 2000 K for L8 to M9.5 dwarfs respectively. We also give an outlook what we can achieve with future models that are improving the fits to intermediate L dwarfs and IR spectra.

We have updated our PHOENIX model atmospheres and theoretical spectra for ultracool dwarfs with new opacity data for methane based on line strength predictions with the STDS software. By extending the line list to rotational levels of J = 40 we can significantly improve the shape of the near-IR absorption features of CH4, and in addition find an enhanced blanketing effect, resulting in up to 50% more flux emerging in the J band than seen in previous models, which may thus contribute to the brightening in J and blue IR colors observed in T dwarfs.

The eruptive variable V838 Mon was discovered on Jan 6, 2002. Due to a subsequent phase of almost constant brightness and a spectral appearance which is unlike classical novae, speculations have been made about its nature. Either it was a very peculiar, slow nova defining a new class, an eruptive event in an evolved star as in the case of Sakurai’s Object but in a much earlier phase, or something completely different.

We have completed a grid of spherically symmetric AGB star atmospheres using the state of the art spectral synthesis code PHOENIX. Models are constructed for stars with masses of 1 M⊙ and 1.5 M⊙, spanning the range 10 to 3300 L⊙ in luminosity and 2500 to 5200 K in effective temperature. We find that grains of Al2O3 and CaTiO3 among other species form in atmospheres cooler than Teff = 3000 K. In the coolest models the grains cause a weakening of the TiO absorption features in the red and near infrared of up to 30% through both a depression of the continuum and a depletion of the TiO number abundance. We use spectrophotometric observations from a number of catalogs to determine effective temperature – spectral class and effective temperature – color relationships. We also compare synthetic colors calculated from our models with observations of M giants on Wing's 8-color narrow-band system of classification photometry.

In the past 10 years, 6 classical novae have been observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We have begun a study of these objects using ultraviolet spectra obtained by IUE and optical spectra from nova surveys. We are using the results of this study to further our understanding of novae and stellar evolution.

Our study includes analysis of both the early, optically thick spectra using model atmospheres (Hauschildt et al. 1992), and the later nebular spectra using optimization of photoionization codes (Ferland 1996; James & Roos 1993). By analysing all the LMC novae in a consistent manner, we can compare their individual results and use their combined properties to calibrate Galactic novae. In addition, our studies can be used to determine the elemental abundances of the nova ejecta, the amount of mass ejected, and the contribution of novae to the ISM abundances. To date we have analysed Nova LMC 1988#1 (Schwarz et al. 1998) and Nova LMC 1990#1 (Vanlandingham et al. 1999), and have obtained preliminary results for Nova LMC 1991. The results of this work are presented in this poster.

Novae in outburst can be used as distance indicators. The distance measurement process is considerably simplified if novae could be regarded as standard candles. The term standard candles in the context of this paper means that the absolute magnitude at maximum for different novae is, to a good approximation, constant. The t3 – Mb diagram (Schmidet 1957) implies that this is the case for M31 and LMC novae (Della Valle & Livio 1995). However, this conclusion does not necessarily apply to non Local Group novae (Livio 1992; Della Valle & Livio 1995); for example the Virgo novae are not similar to Local Group novae (Della Valle & Livio 1995). Here we focus on a question of principle, namely: Does the fact that novae have similar spectra imply that they have similar luminosities?

We discuss the physical effects that are important for the formation of the late wind spectra of novae. Nova atmospheres are optically thick, rapidly expanding shells with almost flat density profiles, leading to geometrically very extended atmospheres. We show how the properties of nova spectra can be interpreted in terms of this basic model and discuss some important effects that influence the structure and the emitted spectrum of nova atmospheres, e.g., line blanketing, NLTE effects, and the velocity field. Most of the radiation from hot nova winds is emitted in the spectral range of the EUVE satellite. Therefore, we present predicted EUVE spectra for the later stages of nova outbursts. Observations of novae with EUVE could be used to test our models for the nova outburst.

The atmospheres of M stars are dominated by a small number of very strong molecular compounds (H2O, TiO, H2, CO, VO). Most of the hydrogen is locked in molecular H2, most of the carbon in CO; and H2O, TiO and VO opacities define a pseudo-continuum covering the entire flux distribution of these stars. The optical “continuum” is due to TiO vibrational bands which are often used as temperature indicators for these stars. These may be the depth of the bands relative to the troughs in between them; or the depth of the VO bands; or of the atomic lines relative to the local “continuum”; or even the strength of the infrared water bands; all of these depend on the strength of the TiO bands and the amount of flux-redistribution to longer wavelengths exerted by them. Departures from LTE of the Ti I atom, and thus the concentration of the important TiO molecule, could, therefore, have severe and measurable consequences on the atmospheric structure and spectra of these stars.